At an “upfront” breakfast in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday morning, GSN outlined its plans for the 2013-14 television season, a season that is being reshaped by the popularity of “The American Bible Challenge,” which was introduced during the 2012-13 season and is already back for a second go-round.
Still, GSN executives told reporters they were not planning on creating a channel dominated by faith-based programming. The network, they said, will continue to offer viewers secular shows like “Baggage”; “Family Feud,” in a new iteration with Steve Harvey as the host; “Minute to Win It,” which will have its debut on June 25 with original episodes and a new host, the Olympian Apolo Anton Ohno; and “The Newlywed Game,” also in a new iteration, with Sherri Shepherd as the host.
“We still need to be a broad-based channel,” said Amy Introcaso-Davis, executive vice president for programming and development at GSN.
Even so, the success of “The American Bible Challenge,” hosted by Jeff Foxworthy, is hard to ignore.
“Literally, it put us ahead of the game in the year’s most talked-about programming trend,” Ms. Introcaso-Davis said, referring to the renewed interest among viewers in programming with religious themes like “The Bible,” the miniseries on the History Channel.
“The American Bible Challenge” is the most-watched series in GSN’s history, Ms. Introcaso-Davis said, and “in general, it doubles” the ratings “of anything we’ve ever done.”
The increased viewership for the Bible game show, along with more conventional shows like “Family Feud,” helped GSN’s ratings grow among adults ages 18 to 49 as well as adults ages 25 to 54.
And GSN is enjoying “much greater interest from the advertising community,” said John Zaccario, executive vice president for advertising sales, adding that he and his colleagues had “signed over 100 new advertisers.”
The proposed dating show with a religious setting, called “It Takes a Church,” will ask congregations, pastors, friends and family to find a suitable potential mate for a parishioner who is single. Plans call for hourlong episodes if it becomes a series.
The show is a contemporary version of how “the ladies of the church are always trying to fix up the few single” parishioners, Ms. Introcaso-Davis said, and would be “aimed specifically at that new audience” that has been brought to GSN by “The American Bible Challenge.”
“It Takes a Church” is one of six original series in development at GSN, which, like most cable channels, is trying to significantly increase the amount of original programming on its schedule to woo additional viewers and advertisers.
The other series being considered by GSN include:
¶ Another dating show, “Where Have You Been All My Life,” which asks a contestant to evaluate three potential suitors based on information about their pasts, using sources like photographs and video clips.
¶ “Dance Rivals,” about two dance studios in Orem, Utah, that compete fiercely against each other, which includes as an executive producer Derek Hough, a professional dancer in the cast of “Dancing With the Stars” on ABC. (“Dance Rivals” is in the vein of the handful of reality series that GSN schedules, which executives refer to as “real-life games.”)
¶ “The Imposter,” which asks two contestants to live with a family for 48 hours and figure out which family member is a fake, planted by the producers. The contestant who identifies the imposter wins $25,000; if the imposter is not found, the family wins the cash.
GSN is ordering two game shows as series. One is the new version of “Minute to Win It” with Mr. Ohno; GSN showed reruns of episodes of the original version, hosted by Guy Fieri, after they appeared on NBC.
The other show being ordered by GSN is “The Chase,” based on a popular British quiz show that pits four contestants against a cast member known as the Beast — a know-it-all who seeks to answer questions faster and more accurately than the contestants can.
GSN is ordering eight hourlong episodes of “The Chase,” which will make its American debut later this year.
GSN is the most recent in a roster of cable channels that have made or are planning to make their 2013-14 upfront presentations, so called because the events take place before the start of the coming TV season.
The lengthy schedule of presentations is to conclude during the week of May 13 when the big broadcast networks, along with Spanish-language networks and channels, make their presentations.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/10/business/media/gsn-considers-adding-church-based-dating-show.html?partner=rss&emc=rss